Stock cutting apparatus of the guillotine type is well known in the art as is exemplified by U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,938,415; 4,108,029 and 4,294,127 owned by the assignee of the present invention, the entire disclosures of which patents are incorporated herein by reference. While the prior art machines disclosed in these patents are both highly efficient and well suited for the intended purpose, certain aspects thereof are nevertheless subject to improvement.
Tubing and other types of metal stock are frequently manufactured in continuous, high-speed forming mills. Hundreds of feet of finished stock emanate from these mills at high speed, necessitating use of a cut-off apparatus at the terminal end of the mill to cut the stock into manageable lengths.
Tooling in the cut-off apparatus must be in good condition, matched to the stock and precisely located to produce acceptable results. Tool changeover means down time, lost production and lost revenue. Therefore, it must be minimized, but without a sacrifice in performance quality.
Changing blades in a guillotine cut-off, particularly a "double-cut" system having both notching and severing blades, means handling a number of bolts, each of which is easily damaged, or lost, or corrupted with dirt and/or foreign matter. It would greatly facilitate the blade changeover to eliminate the use of bolts.